If you stare at a “statistic” like PITCHf/x for a minute, scan an article, glance at the graphs, and then befuddled, move on to your next stop on the information super-highway, then you’re not alone.

But PITCHf/x isn’t a statistic per se, and  personally I don’t see it as being terribly related to what many refer to as Sabermetrics. Rather, it’s a tool developed for the masses — a method of tracking the path and movement of pitches for the boob tube. If you’ve ever opened a gamechannel on MLB.com you’ve seen PITCHf/x in action. It’s like that  hockey puck tracking divice developed in the early 90s that was supposed to have made hockey popular in America.

The problem is that data like this often ends up in the hands of people who don’t know how to write for an audience. They express amazing things with numbers, but the audience is limited, and the end product is often alienating to many.

So whenever the two worlds cross I feel a need to point it out. That Outfield Arms article I linked to last week wasn’t bad, and this piece, A PITCHf/x Primerwritten by Mike Fast for MVN’s Statistically Speaking, is also very interesting.

Spend 30 minutes of your time reading the article and checking out some of the links. You’ll have a better understanding of not only PITCHf/x, but of pitching in general.